Putting the Universe Back in Motion
by Omnicat
Summary: TWILIGHT AXIS / There have been times Arlette's survival depended on finding a way to move heaven and earth, in more and more literal ways. Perhaps there always will be. But she won't let that stop her from enjoying the now, where all she has to do is help run a dry cleaning service.


**Title:** Putting the Universe Back in Motion

 **Author:** Omnicat

 **Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge:** _Mobile Suit Gundam: Twilight Axis_ , ONA version.

 **Warnings:** Nothing the canon didn't have.

 **Characters & Relationships:** Arlette Almage & mentioned Danton Hyleg & Quentin Fermo & Lalah Sune & Char Aznable

 **Summary:** There have been times Arlette's survival depended on finding a way to move heaven and earth, in more and more literal ways. Perhaps there always will be. But she won't let that stop her from enjoying the now, where all she has to do is help run a dry cleaning service. **/ 586 words**

 **Author's Note:** This is based on the ONA and about two dozen plot summaries and wiki pages. I'm _pretty_ sure I've got a decent grip on what was going on, but this is your warning that no, I did not read the novels and yes, this probably contradicts them at least once every other word. :) Enjoy!

 **II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

 **Putting the Universe Back in Motion**

Sometimes she still dreams that it won't move. The instrument needle, the mobile suit, the body – _it_ won't move, and neither will her limbs, and so her loved ones die alone. Sometimes on a set schedule, like the other Newtype children at the Flanagan Institute. Sometimes out of the blue, a sudden concussive blast that knocks over every barrier between them, like Miss Lalah. Sometimes without so much as a whimper to warn her, like Captain Char. A million different ways, but always without her, because _she can't move_.

But then she wakes up, limbs jerking beneath the constraints of her bed sheets. Throwing back the covers, she stretches her hands towards the ceiling – out of reach – and touches the headboard of her bed instead. It's smooth and solid and grounding. Perfect for squeezing until her hands stop shaking and her chest no longer heaves so wildly. Then she gets up and gives the company van a tune-up until Danton tracks her down with breakfast on a plate, or a laconic admonishment to come eat it with him at the table.

She never makes him wait. A cursory glance is all she really needs to remind herself that the van is already in perfect condition and ready to move at a moment's notice. It's one of _hers_ , after all.

Sometimes, though, if purring engines and Danton's presence aren't enough, she opens the box in the back of her closet. The piece of Psycho Frame she found on Axis burned itself up, kindling to the fire of her mind, but she kept the string she'd hung it around her neck with. The knots are still intact. More interestingly, so is the shape the string had taken around the Psycho Frame. It feels cool and smooth beneath the callouses of her fingertips, not like the material she remembers using at all, and it reflects the light when it moves.

Like the memory of that moment, that shining, otherworldly energy, has been imprinted on it. A physical reality to match the impressions etched into her mind.

She handles it as gently as she can. It's never gentle enough; almost every time she touches it, another little piece of the crystallization crumbles away, and the string loses a little bit more of its firmness. It used to be upsetting. But as time passes and the dreams come further and further apart, she finds she minds less and less.

Maybe it's a sign that she _needs_ it less and less. That her heart needs to hold onto its feelings less tightly. That she can let the universe move around her as it will and still be content.

That thought makes her smile.

So does this one:

Every time night falls again on a day she'd woken up to in the clutches of a pounding heart and cold sweat, she looks up at the stars and knows that somewhere out there is a pilot she moved with a force that bridges the space between souls, between life and death.

A force that pushes asteroids from the sky.

A pilot she moved to mercy and a moment of peace he had not known since he was a child in a Newtype institute himself.

She had moved death itself to allow her and Danton passage. Sometimes she forgets, because the memory of it is so overwhelmingly bright it's hard to look at directly. But she did it. And if she did that, she can do anything.

That's how awesome she is, in the end.


End file.
